Wednesday, August 28, 2013

The kids had their first day of school in Colorado this past week. They all seem to enjoy going to school and love their teachers. We took some pictures of the kids on the first day. Here is Miss Annabelle, on her first day of school ever(we never had her in preschool, unless you count what I taught her at home)!

Charles, our handsome second grader.

And Elisabeth, our pretty fourth grader. Her and Annabelle choose matching outfits for the first day of school and we got Charles a shirt with some of the same colors.

I put a picture like the one below on facebook and Scott commented that '42k' is the amount we'll be spending on them before they move out! :) Nice.

And some close up photos of each of our school kids that we took the following day.

And just a few random pictures we took one night of the girls reading before bed in their room. Elisabeth and Annabelle sleep on the bunk bed (Lis top and Annabelle bottom), and Jane sleeps in the toddler bed. It's a nice sized room for them with a vaulted ceiling which makes it feel even bigger. Charles and Nora share the third bedroom.

The girls each wanted to take a picture with Nora, but Nora was not really in the mood. You can see Annabelle on the side trying to make Nora smile for the picture.

It didn't really work. She says, "I'm tired and want to go to bed! I am not posing for anymore pictures!!!"

Friday, August 23, 2013

This post will be all writing and no pictures, more of a personal journal entry with a lot of random nothings. Sorry if that seems lame but my computer is dying and I'm tired of it crashing and losing pictures and re-uploading them etc., and I kind of feel like just laying everything out there about what's been going on since our move so that's what I'm going to do. But I have ordered a new laptop and it should arrive in a week which will make blogging easier...and maybe I'll get back on track with my whole foods blog which I've seriously neglected for months!

It's 930pm and Scott is out playing basketball with some guys from church. I'm glad he can get some exercise time in sometimes. The kids are in bed for the night....mostly. Jane peeks her head in every now and then and I redirect her back to bed. My allergies have been flaring up the past few days as have Scott's which make for some rough nights. Nora and Jane both have had some sort of virus this past week. Mostly fevers and feeling lethargic though Nora also had some diarrhea. Nora's illness lasted about 4 days but Jane seemed to have kicked it in about 2. I got a pretty bad sunbrun on my back this past Friday while out at our community pool for 4 hours with the kids one afternoon. It is very large, it almost covers my entire back, and it's been slowly, very slowly healing. The first few days, wearing any type of clothing was killer. It just stung all the time and felt burning hot all the time. I had aloe vera on it constantly but that also meant my clothes would stick to it, even if I let it air dry for a good 30 minutes before putting them back on and then peeling the clothes off my skin was also painful. Now, a week later, I still have some spots that continue to sting and hurt, but it's not nearly as bad and it has started peeling today and it's itching everywhere!

The kids started school this week. Their first day was Monday. They went three days and now they're off for two, doing individual testing with their teachers. The kids seem to enjoy school, even though they didn't know anyone in their classes. Elisabeth and Annabelle each have one LDS kid in their class, though in both cases they are of the opposite sex which isn't as fun for them :). Charles doesn't have any LDS kids in their class that we're aware of. So it feels different to them coming from a class that is mostly LDS. That being said they are making lots of new friends and love their teachers. This is Anabelle's first ever experience with any type of school (we never send them to preschool mostly because I want them here with me :)), and she has done really well; every day she comes home and tells me that she made new friends though when I ask about them she can't ever remember their names :).

We were fortunate enough to move into a very nice cul-de-sac neighborhood. All of our neighbors seem very kind and we were even lucky enough to move two houses down from an LDS family with four kids around our kids age! Seriously, the chances of that happening were extrememly small considering the amount of Mormons in the area and so that was a little tender mercy from the Lord. Our kids have become fast friends and so that definitely helped their transition. We've also made good friends with the family two houses the other direction who have a 9, 7 and 4 year old. The 9 and 7 year old kids are boys which makes Charles very happy :). They love to play baseball together. Good families and people everywhere! We love it!

Charles and Elisabeth have started piano lessons with a lady who is in our ward and who is very, very good, she has a degree in piano, and is quite a bit more expensive than our last :). I'm excited to see where the kids go from here in piano. Elisabeth is also doing a 3 week mini session of gymnastics. If she loves it we'll let her continue.

Scott is learning a lot in his new job position and enjoying it. His office is only 8 miles away though it takes a good 20 minutes sometimes more getting to and from because of traffic, which still isn't that bad. I mean, that's why we choose this house was because I didn't want him driving an hour or more each way so this really isn't very bad. Scott and I are usually up around 530am and I'll read while he's getting ready, and then I exercise and he takes off around 645. Right now he's working extra hours trying to make up for the time he lost during our move, but once he does that in the next few weeks here, he'll be able to come home around 4 if he continues to leave for work early.

As for me, I'm just trying to hang in there, slowly getting everything in order. We moved into a smaller rental home than our last home, with three bedrooms instead of 5 but we did that because we knew this would be temporary until we buy a house and we wanted to have as little a monthly payment as possible so we could save more, faster. By the way, I can't remember if I've mentioned this before but we also got our house in Utah rented out.

To my delight and Scott's dismay, we live only about a 7 minute drive from a Costco and a Whole Foods! It makes me so happy! Church is about a ten minute drive so not too bad. The temple is 45 minutes without traffic and a good hour and a half in traffic. We still need to hang most of our pictures, though quite a few of them I'm leaving all packed up in our unfinished basement here because like I mentioned, it's smaller so we don't need as many pictures hanging. I've been spending time doing research on dining tables and sectionals for family rooms since those are two things I want to purchase very soon. Our 6 seater table is just too small for our family and we definitely can't have guests sitting around it comfortably. We can't even have our 7 around it comfortably. And Scott and I have not liked our family room couch for years. All the pillows come off which means they're always all over the place, stacked up into tent like structures or used as punching bags or whatever. I would like to get a sectional that can double as a guest bed since our space is limited. Like I mentioned above, I just ordered a new laptop which meant I did hours of research on that as well. I've met a few people from the ward and they all seem very nice. I'm sure in time I will make some good friends. But it just takes a lot of time for me :). Oh and I forgot to mention my phone trouble. My Sprint cell would not get good reception here. At all. I couldn't make or receive calls from home. It was ridiculous. Thankfully Sprint let me out of my contract without a penalty (though hours of phone conversations that were frustrating because we couldn't hear each other many times, we experienced lots of dropped calls, or I would have to drive somewhere else to talk). And now I have the same type of smart phone but through AT&T and I get much better reception. So as you can see, not much fun and excitement going on around here, just trying to hang in there and survive all this new-change stuff. I have gone in to get my Colorado license so that was good, though I still need to do emissions on my car and get new plates. We found a new doctor and dentist which I'm happy about. I got a calling in the church. I will be a Sunday school teacher for the youth ages 12 and 13. I've never worked with the youth before so I'm excited, though I guess they're really not a whole lot older than some of my primary kids. Scott doesn't have a calling yet but I'm sure he will soon. I think that's about it for now.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Since we've moved here (a couple of weeks), thunderstorms have not been uncommon in the late afternoon/early evening. They generally last about ten minutes, so not very long. One day during a massive downpour the kids pulled on their swimsuits and ran out into the cul-de-sac for some splashing fun!

Remember, it's summer so it's a warm thunderstorm.

I'm sure the neighbors were wondering what kind of people moved in next door :).

Monday, August 19, 2013

After our trip to Washington we had a few days home before we left for Colorado. Scott and I spoke in church that Sunday on moving forward with faith, and our family sang, "families can be together forever", Elisabeth and Charles each did a little solo piece. During those few days we also took pictures with some neighbors/good friends. The first picture is with Julie Wilcox's kids. Julie and I did a babysitting swap during the school year where one week she'd watch my three youngest girls while I went into school to volunteer in the kids classes and the next week I'd watch Julies youngest two boys while she went in to volunteer. It was a perfect fit!

We were lucky enough to live in a neighborhood that had friends for all of our kids. Here are our girls with Sadi and Ashlyn, our next door neighbors.

Just down the street live our friends Maddie and Kennedy.

Our good friends the Wilcoxes:

Brian holding Nora. She rarely snuggles up to me so I don't get this!

Charles with Benjamin and Brigham. Brigham is Charles' best friend.

Maren and Anna (and baby number 4)

The movers came and packed up all our stuff and weren't going to load until the following day so we stayed a night with our good friends the Ludwigs (Elisa and Mark). Annabelle and Annika are BFF's so they LOVED having a sleep over which is something my friend Elisa and I would normally not allow so the girls were ecstatic!

Elisabeth and Andrew playing cards

Annabelle, Annika and Noah

Elisa and Elisa :)

We took off for Colorado Wednesday afternoon and were planning on going just four hours to Grand Junction where we would sleep for the night and see one of my roommates from BYU, Jen. Well, an hour and a half into our trip, and nearly to the summit of a mountain, Scott's radiator died, and the hose exploded. He was behind me and had Charles and Jane with him. I was a couple cars ahead and didn't notice so I kept driving and since it was in the mountains, we didn't have cell phone service. About 30 minutes later I got a phone call from a woman who said she'd tried to call me before and left a message, but that she wanted to try me again. We were in and out of service all the time in that area so when she got service and called, I didn't have it so I'm glad she kept trying. Anyway, she gave me the mile markers where Scott was stuck so I quickly flipped a u-turn, pulled over, called the car insurance and had them set up for a tow truck to come meet us and then me and the girls were off to the rescue! I was worried because I was far out, I knew they would be waiting for awhile, it was going to get dark in an hour and I had just driven those mountains and knew there wasn't much space to pull off on the side. So I went really fast, and I was hoping a cop would pull me over and then follow me over and help. I in fact had a cop pass me going the other way, while I was driving like a speed demon and I even waved at him, with really big arms, hoping he'd get the message, but he didn't. Anyway, we made it there in about 20 minutes so they were stranded for almost an hour. When I arrived a guy was trying to strap Scott's truck up to his car to pull him up to the summit where there was a gas station. We thanked the man and sent him on his way. We got all of us loaded in the van and then drove up to the gas station which is where I asked the tow truck guy to meet me when he called while I was driving like a mad woman :). We only had to wait about 10 minutes before he got there, and in the meantime we had bathroom breaks and grabbed hot dogs and other junk for dinner...I ate a pb&j I had packed. We found a hotel in Price and stayed there while our truck was being worked on in a shop near by. They had to send in for a radiator in SLC so that took some time. We ended up staying two nights and while we were there we were able to take care of some business with renting our home which turned out to be a blessing because once we got to our home in Colorado, we found we don't get cell phone coverage with Sprint so I've been without a phone for over a week and it would've been hard to rent the home and take care of that without a phone. Luckily I was able to cancel my phone service and get a new one through AT&T which works better.

We stayed in Price for two nights, though basically one day. Here we are at the hotel restaurant we became regulars at for the day because kids eat free at every meal :). I'm sure normally they don't lose much money on that discount, but with our family with five children, I'm afraid they did.

Friday morning we got Scott's truck and took off for Grand Junction. We met up with my friend Jen and her family and visited and ate lunch together. We left our truck there to be picked up by an auto transport company who would take the truck the rest of the way....we just weren't sure how it would do over the Rockies and we didn't want to chance it with our having to meet the moving company there the following morning.

They have a really cool climbing tree in the front yard with several rope swings.

Me and Jen

From Grand Junction it's about 4 hours to Denver. I took a picture when we saw the road sign with Denver on it! So excited to finally get there! With our road trip to Washington the week before which was 28-30 hours of driving and then this, we were all road-tripped out!

We stopped over in Lakewood and had dinner with some friends Scott and I knew when we lived in Wymount student family housing at BYU. It was so fun to catch up with them and the kids loved playing in the backyard with their kids. We stayed one more night in a hotel once we got in the Denver area because our home wasn't going to be ready for us until the next morning, which is also when the moving company would arrive with all our stuff.

In our hotels we usually got a room with 2 queens plus a pull-out bed which worked out nicely.

And the hotel usually has some sort of playpen or port-a-crib they can set up.

And now we're here, and we're sleeping in our own beds! Yay! What an adventure!

Hi, I'm Elisa and this is my blog. I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (aka Mormon), I've been happily married to my best friend for 12 years and together we have 5 wonderful children ages 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13. I am grateful to be alive and I am grateful for all of our many blessings; three very important ones I've mentioned above.

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"Life is just like an old time rail journey ... delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride." -President Gordon B. Hinckley(15th Latter Day Prophet) quoting Jenkin Loyd Jones

"In his strength I can do all things"-Alma 26:12"I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." -Philippians 4:13

"Seemingly little lessons of love are observed by children as they silently absorb the examples of their parents. Let us make certain that our examples are worthy of emulation." -President Thomas S. Monson(Living Prophet)